Job details

Zutari designs transport systems that connect people, enable trade, and unlock economic growth across the Middle East and Africa.

Our work spans roads, rail, transit, and integrated mobility systems that are safe, efficient, and future-ready.

We are seeking individuals passionate about mobility solutions that go beyond infrastructure and help shape the way cities and regions move.

About the role

We are seeking a Senior Stakeholder Manager based in Abu Dhabi to support Zutari’s High-Speed Rail Abu Dhabi stakeholder support package within our Transport Infrastructure portfolio.

The role requires a senior authority and stakeholder coordination professional with deep experience in Abu Dhabi infrastructure approval processes, particularly across transport, rail, roads, utilities, corridors, right-of-way, and major linear infrastructure projects. The role also requires established relationships with relevant Abu Dhabi government, infrastructure, utilities, transport, and development stakeholders.

The successful candidate will act as the central coordination lead for authority engagement, stakeholder interfaces, approvals, No Objection Certificate processes, technical submissions, and escalation management. This role will support the successful delivery of a high-profile rail infrastructure programme by ensuring alignment between regulatory requirements, client expectations, programme milestones, technical deliverables, and authority approvals.

Key responsibilities

• Leading authority coordination and stakeholder engagement for the High-Speed Rail Abu Dhabi stakeholder support package.
• Acting as the primary interface between the client, design teams, consultants, contractors, government authorities, infrastructure agencies, utility providers, developers, and other approving entities.
• Coordinating with relevant Abu Dhabi authorities and stakeholders, which may include transport, roads, rail, municipal, utility, environmental, telecommunications, security, and development entities.
• Supporting engagement with Abu Dhabi infrastructure authorities and related approving bodies to secure timely approvals, permits, clearances, and NOCs.
• Representing Zutari and the project team in authority meetings, technical workshops, stakeholder coordination sessions, and progress reviews.
• Leading the development and implementation of a structured stakeholder engagement and communication strategy.
• Defining approval pathways, stakeholder mapping, escalation routes, decision points, and programme-critical dependencies.
• Establishing, maintaining, and managing authority approval and NOC trackers.
• Monitoring the status of all technical submissions, authority responses, comments, resubmissions, clearances, and approvals.
• Identifying stakeholder, authority, and approval-related risks that may affect project delivery, design progress, construction readiness, or programme milestones.
• Providing proactive advice to the project leadership team on authority approval risks, mitigation actions, and escalation requirements.
• Reviewing project schedules to identify authority-related constraints and approval dependencies.
• Supporting technical teams by interpreting authority requirements and ensuring that design submissions are aligned with Abu Dhabi regulatory expectations.
• Coordinating multidisciplinary design interfaces across roads, rail, utilities, drainage, structures, traffic, environmental, urban planning, and corridor protection requirements.
• Liaising with internal teams to resolve design interfaces, constructability constraints, stakeholder comments, and authority observations.
• Ensuring that all authority submissions are complete, accurate, compliant, and aligned with project requirements.
• Preparing weekly and monthly reports on authority coordination, stakeholder engagement, NOC status, risks, actions, and key decisions required.
• Maintaining clear records of stakeholder engagement, meeting outcomes, action trackers, correspondence, approvals, and commitments.
• Supporting proposals and tenders by contributing to stakeholder strategy, methodology, scope definition, risk identification, and level-of-effort estimation.
• Supporting senior project leadership in client-facing discussions and authority escalation meetings where required.

Required competencies:

• Strong knowledge of Abu Dhabi infrastructure authority processes, approval requirements, and regulatory pathways.
• Proven experience managing authority approvals and NOC processes on major infrastructure projects in Abu Dhabi.
• Strong understanding of stakeholder coordination requirements for large-scale transport, rail, roads, utilities, and corridor-based infrastructure projects.
• Experience coordinating with government authorities, infrastructure agencies, utility providers, developers, contractors, and multidisciplinary design teams.
• Strong technical understanding of roads, rail interfaces, utilities, drainage, right-of-way, and enabling infrastructure.
• Ability to interpret multidisciplinary design information and translate authority requirements into clear technical actions for project teams.
• Strong coordination, negotiation, facilitation, and conflict-resolution skills.
• Ability to manage complex stakeholder environments with multiple approval pathways and competing priorities.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to engage confidently with senior client, authority, and project representatives.
• Ability to work under pressure and maintain momentum on time-critical approvals.
• Strong reporting, tracking, documentation, and follow-up discipline.
• Commercial awareness and understanding of how authority delays can affect programme, cost, scope, and delivery risk.
• Ability to delegate and monitor tasks to junior liaison engineers and drafting support

Qualifications and experience

Minimum requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, Transport Planning, Infrastructure Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Minimum 10 years’ experience in transport, rail, roads, utilities, or major infrastructure projects.
• Demonstrated experience in Abu Dhabi authority coordination, infrastructure approvals, and NOC management.
• Proven experience supporting large-scale multidisciplinary infrastructure projects in the UAE.
• Strong understanding of Abu Dhabi approval processes and stakeholder engagement requirements.
• Experience working with senior government, client, consultant, and contractor representatives.
• Ability to lead authority discussions and manage approval-related risks independently.
• Preferred requirements
• Master’s degree in a relevant engineering or infrastructure discipline.
• Prior experience on rail, high-speed rail, metro, heavy rail, transport corridor, or major linear infrastructure projects.
• Established working relationships with Abu Dhabi infrastructure, municipal, transport, utilities, and development stakeholders.
• Experience working on strategic government-led infrastructure programmes in Abu Dhabi or the wider UAE.
• Arabic language capability would be advantageous but is not mandatory.
• Technical and systems skills

The candidate should have:

• Strong capability in interpreting multidisciplinary infrastructure design information.
• Experience with authority submission processes, NOC trackers, approval dashboards, and action logs.
• Familiarity with BIM coordination platforms, document control systems, and common data environments.
• Working knowledge of scheduling tools and programme interfaces related to authority approvals.
• Strong Microsoft Office skills, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Teams.
• Ability to prepare structured reports, stakeholder matrices, approval trackers, and management dashboards.
• Experience working with project management and document control systems would be advantageous.
• Key interfaces

The role will require regular coordination with:

• Client representatives.
• Abu Dhabi government and infrastructure authorities.
• Rail and transport stakeholders.
• Municipal and planning authorities.
• Roads and right-of-way stakeholders.
• Utility providers and corridor owners.
• Environmental, telecommunications, and security stakeholders.
• Developers and adjacent asset owners.
• Design consultants and technical discipline leads.
• Contractors and delivery partners.
• Zutari project leadership and internal multidisciplinary teams.
• Success measures

The successful candidate will be expected to:

• Establish a clear and effective authority coordination framework for the project.
• Maintain accurate and current stakeholder, NOC, and approval trackers.
• Reduce approval delays through proactive engagement and escalation.
• Ensure timely closure of authority comments and technical actions.
• Provide reliable reporting to the client and project leadership team.
• Support programme certainty by identifying and managing authority-related risks early.
• Build strong, professional relationships with key Abu Dhabi stakeholders.
• Enable the technical team to progress designs in line with authority requirements.

We believe that a diverse workforce is key to our business success. We seek the best people for our jobs based on their skills, qualifications, and experience. We embrace the principle of equal opportunity in employment, and we work towards eliminating all forms of unlawful discrimination in our employ.